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Cited by 314Intergenerational and Educational Inequality StudiesFamily Dynamics and RelationshipsSchool Choice and Performance

Family Disadvantage and the Gender Gap in Behavioral and Educational Outcomes

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Autor, David, Figlio, David, Karbownik, Krzysztof, Roth, Jeffrey, Wasserman, Melanie·2019·American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
DOI 10.1257/app.20170571
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Abstract

Boys born to disadvantaged families have higher rates of disciplinary problems, lower achievement scores, and fewer high school completions than girls from comparable backgrounds. Using birth certificates matched to schooling records for Florida children born 1992–2002, we find that family disadvantage disproportionately impedes the pre-market development of boys. The differential effect of family disadvantage on boys is robust to specifications within schools and neighborhoods as well as across siblings within families. Evidence supports that this is the effect of the postnatal environment; family disadvantage is unrelated to the gender gap in neonatal health. We conclude that the gender gap among black children is larger than among white children in substantial part because black children are raised in more disadvantaged families. (JEL D91, I24, I32, J13, J15, J16)

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  • Controlling for marital status has a larger effect when not controlling for parent income, reducing the unconditional black-white gap from 17.6 to 13.3 percentiles.

    “Controlling for marital status has a larger effect when we do not control for parent income, reducing the unconditional black-white gap from 17.6 to 13.3 percentiles (Online Appendix Figure VII), consistent with Autor et al. (2019).”

    From Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: an Intergenerational Perspective* (2020) · cites this paper as Autor et al. (2019)

    The cited paper reports that accounting for maternal education and marital status reduces the black–white difference in the boy–girl high-school graduation gap (Section 3.2, p. 21). That supports a general connection between family structure and racial differences in outcomes, but it does not establish the citing sentence’s income-control comparison or its 17.6-to-13.3-percentile estimate; the sentence attributes that estimate to its own Online Appendix Figure VII. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Cites

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Cited by

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Authors
Autor, D., Figlio, D., Karbownik, K., Roth, J., & Wasserman, M.
Affiliations
  • National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
  • Northwestern University (US)
  • University of Florida (US)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (US)
ORCID
Venue
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Publisher
American Economic Association
Published
2019-07-01
Volume
11
Issue
3
Pages
338-381
ISSN
  • 1945-7782 (ISSN-L)
  • 1945-7790
DOI
10.1257/app.20170571
OpenAlex
W3122337044
Cited by
314
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
FWCI
68.33
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • American Economic Journal Applied Economics (publishedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
  • DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Sage Foundation
  • National Institute on Aging (T32AG000186)
  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
  • Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
Keywords
family disadvantage, gender gap, boys, student discipline, academic performance, high school graduation, postnatal environment, black-white disparities, child development, birth certificates, sibling comparison

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